After Debbie was gone Bill ran in. Sookie stared at him all starry eyed. I thought I'd give them a moment, I went upstairs to the bathroom. There was blood staining my pure white skin. I cleaned my face and made sure I had no missing teeth. Afterwards I went into my room and looked out the window. That woman stood there in the backyard. I ran full speed down the stairs and out the backdoor.
When I reached the yard she was smiling. "You're quite fast." She said quietly. "Would you like to take a walk with me Eleanor?" She asked. "No, I would like some answers." I said to the woman who claimed to be my mother. "I could stand here all night trying to tell you everything, or you can just take my hand." The woman said offering her pale hand to me. As soon as I took it I felt the power of the light.
Athenodora wanted a child, but she could not let her child live in the land of the Fae. She left Fae many times and became aware of a man by the name of Corbett Stackhouse. He seemed to have fairy blood in him. Athenodora approached him once, and that's when she conceived her only child. When she gave birth to the child, she had to leave it with Corbett, she just couldn't subject her child to the awful life that she had lived in Fae. Corbett was shocked, and begged his mother to hide his infidelity from his wife Michelle. Adele accepted and tried to care for the child herself, but her daughter Linda wanted the child. That child was named Eleanor Stackhouse.
When I recovered I was being held by the woman, who was undoubtedly my mother. I was sobbing. My whole life was a lie, things were hidden from me by the people I loved the most. "I didn't want to leave you, but, you see I had to." She cooed smoothing my hair. "Oh, but I've watched you. So brave you are." Her voice was strong and I felt the love in her grasp.
After about an hour of my sobbing and being held by my mother, I sobered. I sat up and looked at her. She moved my hair from my eyes and wiped a tear from my cheek. "Darling, we have to talk." She told me, I nodded and watched as she tried to figure a way to put something. "You have to stay away from vampires." She said. "Why?" I asked her. "Because they will take your light." She said simply.
"I'm not going to be around any vampires. Well, except for Bill." I said. Her eyes narrowed instantly at me. "You cannot be close to any vampires." She meant what she said. "No, you see, Bill is Sookie's boyfriend." As I thought of it, Sookie and Jason were my half brother and sister. Wow. "It does not matter my dear, they cannot help themselves. If you were to bleed next to one of them, they could not control themselves. They would suck the light out of you within seconds." She said. "Vampires were the death of our kind." The way she said our kind made me feel inhuman.
About three hours before dawn, Athenodora stood. "I must go back. I will try and come again, soon." She said. "Goodbye, Athenodora." I said to the woman who had given birth to me. "Goodbye Eleanor." And then she was gone.
I spent a few minutes on the porch alone before Sookie walked outside. "Ella." She said softly. "What are you doing out here?" She asked. "I'm, uh." I felt caught in a lie. Sookie sat down beside me. "Why are you crying?" She asked. I didn't have it in me to tell her the whole story. "Ella, I know it's scary being hunted down and nearly killed. Hell, it'd be weird if it didn't scare you. But, I know you're strong, you've always been." She was going on with her speech until I hugged her. I really needed hugs.
"Bill says we should stay at Jason's for the day." She spoke into my hair while I clung to her. "Okay." I agreed. The ride to Jason's house was quiet. I was thinking over everything I had learned in the last hour. It was a lot, a whole life changing event in fact. But, I wouldn't change how I grew up for the world. I had my aunt as a mother, and my father as an uncle. Then I realized, my gran was still my gran. I felt like that meant something.
When we got to Jason's I went to his room and laid on his bed. I felt tired but, my mind was going so fast, there was no way I could sleep. I could hear Bill and Sookie's muffled voices through the wall, but I hardly paid attention to what they had said. It was only when Sookie called me that I went into the living room.
"What is it?" I asked walking into the intense air between them. "Ella, you're a- no we're-" Sookie stuttered a bit. "Fairies." I finished. Her eyes were very wide when I glanced over at her. "How did you?" Bill started to ask. "A woman by the name of Athenodora visited me." I shrugged, I didn't feel the need to tell Bill everything. He did help Russell capture me after all. "She must be your fairy godmother." Sookie said. If she only knew the truth there was in that statement.
Dawn was about to approach. Sookie and I sat on the couch watching TV. Bill stepped outside.
After a few minutes Sookie went after him. Following Sookie outside I saw Bill and Eric staring at each other. "Oh give me a break, you left us at Russell's house to die." Bill said with hate thick in his voice. "Where's the fucking truth for once?" Bill asked loudly. Eric got closer to him. "The truth? Well why don't you tell Sookie the fucking truth?" He asked Bill. "If you really love her?" Eric added.
Sookie looked from Bill to Eric. "What truth?" Sookie asked Bill standing next to him. "The truth about what you two are. Which I've already told you." Bill said smoothly. "Why are you here?" Sookie looked up at Eric. "To pretend you care about our safety, so you can sell us out to Russell again, or is it the queen this time?" Sookie asked him.
Then Eric looked over at me, it was the first time we had made eye contact, since he told me he cared nothing about me. "You really believe he is trustworthy?" Eric asked me motioning to Bill. Then with no thought at all I spoke to him. "As Bill said you left us all at Russell's house to die, that is something I know for a fact. You told me how you really felt about me as well." I flinched at the memory. "I'm not gullible enough to believe that Bill is untrustworthy just because you say it." I finished regaining my confidence.
It was the look on Eric's face that changed everything in a spilt second. "Believe what you want. I won't be around much longer anyway." He was afraid, truly afraid of something. He turned to look at me one more time, pain readable on his face. "I'm sorry, Ella Stackhouse." He gave me the look that I had only caught, by chance twice before, this time it was longer and more meaningful. He cared. My breath caught in my throat and before I could utter a word, he was gone.
After the whole ordeal, I tried to assure myself it was one of his charades. Eric Northman was a very old heartless creature. He cared nothing about me, it was hopelessly ignorant to believe otherwise. My heart told me different, though. It told me that he was capable of love. That Eric Northman was a old wounded creature. He had been around long enough to perfect hiding his true feelings.
The whole day I thought like that, erratic, unsmooth, and completely irrational. It went on to the point of nightfall. Which as soon as it fell, I snuck out of the house and got in Sookie's car and drove brainlessly to Shreveport. When I finally saw the red lights of Fangtasia I stopped and got out. It was closed, I still knocked on the door as I had the night Sookie went missing.
Pam answered it and held not even a fake smile on her face for me. "What?" She asked. "I need to see Eric. Please." Asking people nicely usually resulted in some kind of accomplishment. Pam just stared at me. "Pam, he said that he wouldn't be around much longer. What the hell does that mean?" I asked her, she looked away awkwardly. It was true, true enough for Eric to tell Pam. She moved from the door and held up her hand for me to follow her.
Eric was sitting in a chair looking at the floor, sulking. Pam looked at him and sighed before she left. I looked at Eric, his wide shoulders were slumped over and he was silent. I walked over to where he sat and placed my hand on his shoulder. "Eric." I whispered, there were flashes of him almost dying before Godric turned him, the feeling of slipping away. But he knew it wouldn't be a peaceful as that. There would be no mercy for the soulless vampire that he had become. His thoughts and feelings of despair struck me deeply.
He stood up and was face to face with me in the same second. "Why are you here, Ella?" He asked. "I want to know what you meant when you said you wouldn't be around much longer." I couldn't seem to raise my voice above a whisper. "I'm going to meet the true death quite soon." He tried to wear a smile but it wouldn't stick. "But, why?" I asked him. "I killed Russell's family, he has almost two thousand years on me. Is that all you came here for?" He looked at the wall when he asked me that. His voice went cold when he took his eyes off of me.
"Did you mean it?" I asked him, he knew that I meant when he told me I was nothing to him. "No, unfortunately, I did not. This would be much simpler if I had." He said. "You should go." Eric spoke coldly. I walked around to look at him, he was sad. "Is this goodbye?" I asked him looking into his eyes. "Yes." He said quickly, our faces, our lips, were just inches away from one another's.
Eric's cold hand was on my neck bringing me to him. Our lips met and a fire erupted in my body sending thunderous waves over every inch of me. Our lips moved in unison. I could feel the warmth of myself through him, his pain, my warmth, our love. When it became to much for me to handle I retreated.
He stared down at me, I could see the fear in his eyes. When Pam opened the door, he iced over again. "What?" He asked. "Blah, blah, vampire emergency, blah." She purred with her hands on her hips. Eric looked at her, then back at me before he walked out of the room with her closing the door behind him. I waited there for a minute then two. When I was done waiting I went to open the door. It was locked. "You've got to be fucking kidding me." I muttered as I tried to open the door again.
When Eric came back he looked colder than he had before. "Why the hell did you lock the door?" I asked him. Eric didn't say a thing as he threw me over his shoulder. "Put me down!" I screamed hitting him. He didn't speak until he threw me down in his basement. He put a chain around my neck like a dog. The only thing he said to me was. "Sorry." Then he left me there in the dark.